Twitter Without The Witter

While the rest of us use Twitter to tell the world about a particularly excellent snack or impending toilet trip, some people are using it on another level entirely.

Follow @Change_for_Iran, @IranRiggedElect, @NextRevolution and @persiankiwi for real people in Tehran, risking their lives to post news and information.

Powerful, scary, moving. I hope they find the freedom they deserve.

View From The Cabbie

I had to get a taxi to a meeting this morning.

My opening conversational gambit was, “Blimey, these buildings have gone up quick”.

It took under two minutes for him to get to, “No-one’s prepared to stand up and say there’s too many illegal immigrants”.

Brilliant.

Terrorvision

Fantastic! Another reunion tour, and may there be many more…. Especially if they do strange acoustic bits again.

Eurostar

We’ve just come back from Paris. More on that later, maybe. But for now: Eurostar. The great white hope for travel. The antidote to low cost airlines and shopping-centre airports. The easy, convenient, fast, comfortable and above all pleasant, way to get to Europe. Well, you’ll be surprised to hear that yet again the emperor is utterly naked.

First, St Pancras Station is quite impressively refitted. Clean, modern, spacious. It’s just a shame the centrepiece sculpture is so utterly foul and much too big, and you can’t see the magnificent original building for the glass’n’steel. But what do you expect from modern architecture? It’s exactly 26.8% better than any other train station, so that’s ok. Then it all starts to go wrong…

What do you most hate about flying? Queues? Intrusive security screening? Taking your bag and coat off and emptying your pockets of loose change to go through the beepy arch? Check! All present and correct for train travel too.

What the hell for? The last time I checked, you could easily get on the ferry or take your car through the tunnel without having your luggage x-rayed or your passports scrutinised. Why on earth do you need it for Eurostar? You can also travel to and fro between Germany, France, Belgium etc by car or train without any interrogation. Even before the EU, we once went by train between Poland and Hungary and all that happened was a quick check of the passport. Within the EU we should be free to move around at will.

But that’s not really the point: We can travel to Europe already by car without the metaphorical finger-up-the-bum!

The tickets say check in 30 minutes before. Granted, Thursday night was very busy with all trains full. But 30 minutes was too short, and the rude and unpleasant staff had to call through the people who were about to miss their trains. So they clearly can’t check in busy trains in 30 minutes – but asking for an hour check in would, of course, damage their “fast” branded marketing.

I wanted to like it, but it was only convenient for me as I was already in London on departure day. For Penny and for both of us getting home, Gatwick would’ve been quicker. Convenience drops off as soon as you live outside London or away from Ebbsfleet.

On top of all that, the legroom on the trains was pitiful and the seats uncomfortable.

So, I sat in the departure lounge grumpy at queuing for security and feeling like a terrorist, I sat on the train with knees in the back of someone else. Sounds just like a cheap flight, only without the ‘cheap’ bit.

Next time, I won’t bother. Flying is no less unpleasant, not any more time consuming, and at least the departure lounges have semi-decent food. And as someone paranoid about their carbon footprint, I never thought I’d say that…

My Engagement Ring

We had a lovely meal out on Friday. Since it was the 29th February, Penny followed the tradition and proposed. This is my beautiful engagement ring!

Bloody Millenium Dome

It’s 2am and we’re still on the train home, thanks to the dome being in the middle of bloody nowhere and the Foo Fighters doing a 2hr 15min set. I’m all for value for money, but they could at least have started earlier instead of finishing late. Bastards. I didn’t even enjoy it that much, good fun, good live act, but only 4 or 5 really great songs so easily 40mins too long anyway.

I wouldn’t mind, but they were free tickets. That cost up a train fare, an expensive meal and three unpleasant hours on a couple of trains.

The Week At Length

I have a new radio show, Mondays at 9pm on Radio Reverb. Tim and I do what the Radio Times might call “a sideways look” at local life, topical issues and things that amuse us. We also play music for the discerning ear canal.

It’s fun, but strangely hard work doing silly voices and writing so-called satirical so-called comedy sketches. So please listen, else it won’t feel worthwhile.

Hello

No-one will read this, but Hello if you stumbled this way…

I do various internet things and in the spirit of egotism and Web2.0 bollocks, I thought it was time to put them in one central place. It’s useful for all the people who aren’t in the least bit interested in me to ignore the existence of one simple site instead of lots of others.

I have a podcast and a photo gallery, both of which you can find in the links.

That’s all. Now go and read the BBC or book a holiday or something. That’s what the internet is for.